Friday 3rd December 2010 @ Colston Hall, Bristol
With Support From: Performance

For all practical purposes, we may as well own up that we’re now reliving the eighties: Tory government, student protests, crap England team, yada yada yada… It’s not particularly surprising then that the New Romantic corpse has been warmed up again for another turn on the floor. ABC, Spandau Ballet and Soft Cell have all reformed/re-record/re-lived their classic records and/or line-ups over the last few years. Synth-pop pioneers, The Human League, rank amongst their number.
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Friday 26th November 2010 @ The Greenbank, Bristol

Sometimes you think why the hell did I venture out on a freezing cold, snowy winters evening, and sometimes you think I’m really glad I did. And it’s a case of the latter tonight with Bristol-based female-fronted four-piece, The Metiers.

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Wednesday 24th November 2010 @ Trinity Centre, Bristol

I looked up the weather for the next week and it’s all 3 degrees this and -2 degrees that. The layers are permanently hanging about, insulating or being annoying on floors or draped over arms. The days of the profit making cloakroom are back. In short, it’s cold. Hence a night out with Beach House could not come at a more suitable time. These two from Baltimore, Maryland, USA, however, are more dramatic and melancholy than their name may suggest. They are electro-dream-pop, with a dark and hypnotic edge.

There was a fear that Beach House may not have been able to transcend from the cosy living room/early hours summer soiree, to the live stage. Well, there was no need for any anxieties about this. They have their own styled, very polished performance down. As soon as the notes were hit, there was an immediate wafting of unselfconscious electro pastel coloured pop.
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Monday 22nd November 2010 @ Academy, Bristol

During the 90s, Skunk Anansie were one of the most controversial and provocative rock bands this country had ever seen. After a nine year hiatus, they were back last year with a greatest hits album and a sell out tour that heralded a roaring return. This year their new album, Wonderlustre, has bought them back to the audiences that sorely missed them and also cemented the band in the hearts of new fans of all ages.

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Beautiful people making beautiful music as effortlessly as cutting a slice of cheese; the folk lot are an achingly pleasant bunch aren’t they, all simple gorgeousness. Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling are right in front of the barge boat too, casually meandering on the folk river, probably on cycling swans. Sometimes they join together on a gondolier and make music like the stunning single, The Water, on Flynn’s latest album, Been Listening. Their impressive talent and wondrous audible merge of nature, voice and instrument is stunning.

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Thursday 18th November 2010 @ The Bierkeller, Bristol
With Support From: Austere, Hello Lazarus, Stuart Warwick

Vessels waits patiently like a Zen master before blowing our minds. Austere, however lucked out they may have been when the set times were handed out, gave a competent and intentionally eerie atmospheric warm-up to a gig pregnant with expectation. Often described as prog-rock, at a push the mute collection of hirsute Hammets’ sound was reminiscent of an early Metallica with Fade To Black springing to mind. However, their set was more memorable for its lack of purpose (apart from that of setting a brooding atmosphere) than individuality. Not many bands have the balls to place talent before popularity, and fewer still can make it work.
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Wednesday 1st until Sunday 5th December 2010 @ Arnolfini and Other Venues, Bristol

Inbetween Time Festival 2010 is an adventurous, breakneck festival of performative intrigue taking over the streets, sites and arts spaces of Bristol this December. Live, dance, digital, music, architectural and sculptural works by 130 artists from as far a field as Mexico, Australia, Austria, Germany, Kurdistan, Belgium and the US will be pervading all across the city in venues such as The Cube, Circomedia, Wickham Theatre, Bristol Old Vic and Bridewell Island, with the festival’s hub being Arnolfini.

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Saturday 13th November 2010 @ Colston Hall, Bristol

Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra were never really going to disappoint to be honest; the band boasts so much talent each member would be more than capable of producing a great show all by themselves. Jools may be the first billed but this is far from a one man show. Entering the stage with all the presence and charisma that has populated and made his flagship BBC shows so popular, Jools is humble enough to present each of his band as well as giving the individual moments to shine and reigns praise upon them as they do so. Highlights include an incredibly technical drum solo and a saxophone duel, both earning standing ovations. Make no mistake, the band are the real stars here.
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Wednesday 10th November 2010 @ Bristol Old Vic, Bristol

Well, I wasn’t expecting that! On a cold and murky night in November, wrapped up into a cycling blob of wool, I did not think that upon entering the Bristol Old Vic and a show by Bellowhead, that I would leave wanting to start social singing in my pub and learn to play the violin. I’m not sure that my local pub in Redland would appreciate my sing song efforts, but resolute in my mission to find a ‘social singing pub’, I cycled up Park Street (horrid!) very happy indeed.

This is because Bellowhead are epic. As soon as the eleven-piece band started, it was like being swished around by a giant wave in the ocean and then coming out of it in some sort of parallel world. I want to say nostalgic, because this is how I see ‘olde’ England; lots of vibrant head bouncing and clapping to the strings, percussion, horns, trumpet, sax - Wow! Excitable riotous antics! - all with the warm attribute of a welcoming embrace. However, these guys are more than nostalgia. They are a modern culmination of a variety of genres (soul, jazz, ska, 60s folk, classical) all performed with exceedingly likable charm. This allows for an exploration into music and its possibilities.
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Released: 10.10.10

This six track compilation of nay on perfect indie harmony is a ‘kiss with a fist’ to those critics that had written off this labour-intensive group after two years in radio wilderness since their debut LP.
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